Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

1 Kings 3:4-9; Deuteronomy 13:1-5

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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Today we gather to recognize and to honor a special milestone in the lives of our graduates. In a few short days you will be graduating. You will be taking one more step along the journey of your life, moving yourself forward and opening up new opportunities, new possibilities as to how you can use your gifts and abilities. Some of you have further schooling ahead of you, others are either starting a job or frantically searching for that first job. All of you have reason to rejoice in your accomplishment and to look to the future with great hope.

What will that future hold? Obviously none of us can say. The future still lies ahead and will hold many opportunities and possibilities that we can only guess at. Yet I think a far more important question than "what shall the future hold?" is how will you face that future? What vision and priorities will guide and shape your life through the years ahead?

Let me share with a little of the circumstances and the dream that guided one persons' life: "Giuseppe Good-For Nothing". That's what his daddy called him, Giuseppe Good-For Nothing. The son of a San Francisco fisherman, Giuseppe got sick at the smell of fish and turned green every time he boarded a boat. It didn't seem to matter that his brothers all loved the fishing business, Giuseppe just didn't fit. He tried to explain to the old man that he could work in the office, or increase sales, or even repair the nets, but it was to no avail. He was "good-for-nothing" and that was it. He was booted off the boat.

Giuseppe; tried a few odd jobs. He delivered papers, shined shoes, worked as a bus-boy in a local restaurant. Every dime he made he gave back to the family. But he wasn't fishing, so it didn't count. He was good-for-nothing!

So Giuseppe started hanging out on the streets. There, he discovered stick ball. He was good. With lightning hands and flying feet, he could hit, run and field with the best of them. So Giuseppe followed his dream, and by the time he was finished, he had become the most successful member of his family - even convincing two of his brothers to quit fishing and follow him. And the day came when his father wept with pride at the achievements of his good-for-nothing son.

Years later, long after his career had ended, Giuseppe would laughingly and lovingly recall his pain the day his papa kicked him off the fishing boat for the last time. To be sure, it was the best thing that ever happened to him, for if Giuseppe Good-For-Nothing had ended up a fisherman, Joe DiMaggio would have never made it to baseball's Hall of fame.

Now I don't know that we have any all-star baseball players here today, but each of us needs a vision of what we can be. There are some things that we're well suited to be, and other things that we'll never be. Just as Giuseppe finally realized, some of us are meant to be fisherman and some of us aren't. Yet each of us needs a vision to follow, to work for and towards, to use our gifts and abilities to further that particular purpose, that through the years to come we might see ourselves moving and growing, and accomplishing at least a part of our vision.

Solomon is remembered as one of the greatest Kings that Israel ever had. In fact, if any King of Israel was greater it was probably David, Solomon's father who immediately preceded him as king. When Solomon first became King, it was not clear that he would be great. His heart was in the right place, but sometimes he gave in to temptations that led him astray.

But then, one night Solomon had a dream in which God asked him "What would you like me to give you?" Now that's a real open-ended question. I wonder what each of us would say in his shoes, for the one who has the power to do anything asked him, "What would you like me to give you?"

Solomon, didn't ask for wealth - although he already had a great deal as king, that wouldn't stop many people in similar circumstances from asking for more. Solomon didn't ask for power, again although he already had a great deal as king, some would have sought to rule the world. There are many things that Solomon could have asked for, many forms of temptation that he could of succumbed to, many ways in which he could have thought only of himself, but instead, Solomon said: "give me the wisdom I need to rule your people with justice and to know the difference between good and evil. Otherwise how would I ever be able to rule this great people of yours?"

As we all know many rulers have ruled without much justice and without a clear knowledge of the difference between good and evil. Slobodan Milosovic didn't let that stop him as he ordered the killing of tens of thousands of Kosovars. Even in our own country we often bemoan the reality that politicians are most often concerned with what benefits them. Many politicians are so busy looking for political advantage or perhaps even a payoff that they forget to look for what is right. Solomon could have ruled that way too, but he sought to rule in God's name, to follow God's will. That was his vision, that was the vision that guided and shaped his life, and he will always be remembered as a person who achieved that vision.

What vision will shape your life through the years ahead? What is it that you would ask God for?

Our text from Deuteronomy reminds us that there are many who would lead us astray. There are those who would offer us false visions and wrongful interpretations of our dreams. There are many who would lead us for the wrong reasons and in the wrong directions.

How do we know the difference? Even assuming that our intentions are correct, how do we know what to do? Our text reminds us that the key is to "follow the Lord and have reverence for God; obey God and keep God's commands; worship God and be faithful." The passage ends with the admonition to "put to death any interpreter of dreams or prophet that tells you to rebel against the Lord".

In a more violent day and age they would take that admonition as a literal instruction to kill the person, but today we don't do that. However, an even more powerful way of following that instruction is to kill the temptation within us. When that desire to rebel against the Lord dies, then the person who preaches that course has no power over us, and we see how empty and shallow their words are.

How shall you face the future? What is the vision that you claim? I hope for each of you that it is a vision of following God, that you will seek to worship and have reverence for God throughout your life, for that is truly the only way that you can fulfill your potential, that you can be all that you can be.

It is God who has created us and given us so many wondrous gifts, and it is in the name of God that I invite you to walk into the future, claiming a vision of your future which is faithful and full, a future which uses to the fullest the gifts and the abilities that God has entrusted to you.

Amen.